


don't wake up

by V_e_s_a_n_u_s



Series: Whumptober 2018 [17]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Collapsing, Exhaustion, Fainting, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepiness, Violence, Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 14:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16348814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_e_s_a_n_u_s/pseuds/V_e_s_a_n_u_s
Summary: Day number 19 of #whumptober! Prompt was exhaustion!Anders is struggling to stay awake after a hard shift at the clinic followed by a day out with Hawke. It's all fine... until it's not.





	don't wake up

Anders’ face was squished into his palm, leaning onto his elbow on the desk in front of him for support. His eyes were weary, eyelids drooping low as he skim-read the document in front of him, the words being instantly forgotten the second he’d moved to the next. His clinic was bustling away behind him, people crying and moaning. It was deafeningly loud. To anyone else, this clinic was hell. 

To Anders, it was just a normal Tuesday. 

His ears were numb to the racket, mostly hearing a dull ringing on these kinds of days. The days when he was tired, bones aching and mind soft and mushy from overwork. He’d never been this tired, though. Surely it wasn’t  _ possible.  _ He felt like he was going to collapse whenever he stood up, his legs leaden and his head too heavy. He should be in bed. He  _ knew  _ he should be resting. He should barely be up, let alone casting spells. If it was a patient, he’d have sent them home to get a good day’s rest. 

But the thing was… he  _ wasn’t  _ a patient. 

He was their doctor. He had to heal them. He had to be there to make them better. If he wasn’t, some of them could die. Some of them would never be born. He was so crucial, so vital to the life and survival of these patients that, to make improve their wellbeing, sometimes he needed to sacrifice his own. 

He’d given himself a little break, enough to just sit down and read through his notes on a patient. Nothing was urgent. Mostly coughs and colds and the occasional broken bone. They were all minor ailments that could wait 5 minutes for him to have a break. He’d been up through the night, and it was just past lunch now, and he’d had only a few hours sleep over the last couple of days. He could give himself a break. Just for a little bit. A moment of rest before-

“Anders!” Came the shout at the door.

Almost begrudgingly, certainly tiredly, Anders slowly turned around on his stool, muscles working sluggishly. Barging through the door was Hawke, followed by Fenris and Isabela. The mage sighed, rubbing his eyes with his hands. It was going to be one of those days. 

“I need you to come with us, are you good to go?” Garrett said, glancing around the room. The healer followed his gaze, seeing the room full of people, all depending on him to heal them. Now he was going to abandon them to go and fight with Hawke and the other two, creating another party of people all depending on him to heal them. It was always the same. 

His mind was processing slowly. 

Anything serious still need to be fixed? No.

Can everyone make it back at a different time and not suffer as a result? Probably. 

Was this the right thing to do? Probably not. 

Should he be going out? Definitely not.

“Okay,” Anders said, standing and shaking his arms, trying to get some feeling into them, “Please everyone, come back at a later time. I’ll have time for you all then.”

There was an uproar in response, the group ranting about how unfair it was, how he was prioritising his personal life over his professional life. Anders shrunk back at the comments, but suddenly a loud voice was ringing out.    
“This man,” Hawke said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “Spends hours, no  _ days,  _ tending to your wounds, healing you when you’re sick. He works endlessly to make your life better. You don’t realise how good you all have it. Imagine how bad life would be without it,” the patients had all silenced, looking at each other sheepishly, “So if you’re healer says he has to go, you don’t complain that he hasn’t got round to yet. You should thank him that he even plans to come back  _ and _ get round to you.  _ That’s  _ why he’s a good healer.”

It made the crowd nod in agreement, and they all started leading out in dribs and drabs. Anders wasn’t hunched, he’d straightened out. His confidence was somewhat boosted at his words, his mood lifted. He couldn’t help but think that they wouldn’t  _ have  _ to complain if Hawke hadn’t asked him to go out and beat up a bunch of thugs with him. He knew the time would better be spent resting. He couldn’t do that, though. To the patients or to Hawke.

Anders couldn’t let anyone else down.

 

* * *

Everything blurred together in the mage’s mind. They were in some cave, probably up in Sundermount, fighting some ruffians, probably slavers for doing something bad. Or maybe they were in the Deep Roads, and these were darkspawn. Or it was in the sewers underneath Lowtown, and these were thieves. It didn’t matter to Anders. All he could think was  _ fight. _

His mind was still sluggish. He couldn’t perform most of his high-level spells, settling only for simple and basic attacks. His fighting style was more minimalistic. Instead of swirling around, planting his staff into the ground after every other spell to enhance its power, he stood still, pointing his staff at the assailants with the least flair possible. Not that he could have put the effort in, even if he had wanted to. 

At one point, he fumbled with the staff in his grip, and it slipped through his fingers. His reactions were slower, not catching it as it fell and made a loud crashing sound on the floor. He bent to pick it up, slowly, but one of the attackers had heard the sound, and saw the defenceless mage and tried to take advantage. Right before a blade was run through Anders’ back, Garrett brought down a torrent of lightning onto the warrior’s head, almost incinerating the man’s head as he stood, his blade clattering to the ground. 

“Are you alright, Anders?” Hawke yelled, turning back to the main fight and renewing his attack.

The mage stood, leaning on his staff now that it was back in his hand, “Yeah,” he mumbled back, “Just tired.”

“You better get less tired, because it seems we have company!” Garrett shouted, further changing his target to the rapidly approaching ogre who was stomping its way towards them.

But Anders… couldn’t hear him. He was faraway, his mind darkening. His limbs were leaden and heavy, pulling him down. He was so detached, he couldn’t really see or hear anything going on around him. All he knew, was that he was tired. He was so, so tired. He was just… so… tir…

“Together!” Fenris snarled, sidestepping around Isabela to attack the other side of the large beast in front of them. The bodies of most of the other assailants lay dead around them, in various positions with differing numbers of limbs and organs. This ogre was the last thing standing. All they had to do was take it down and be done with it.

That was easier said than done. 

One of its large hands sweeped around, knocking the elf to his back with a crunch. Isabela managed to avoid it, sneaking in to dig her blades deep into the back of its’ ankle, aiming for the thick tendon that lay beneath its grainy skin. The monster was already slamming its fist down on top of her, and she dodged again, missing most of the blow, but the long claws of the hand scraping her arm to make large welts as it did. Garrett froze it with a strong ice spell, but already the ogre was beginning to break free, he could see the cracks forming in the ice. 

Fenris was up and ready to attack again, ignoring the pain in his side that lit up every time he took a breath. He must have had at least one broken rib, he could feel it throbbing underneath the indent in his armour. “I need healing!” He shouted across the battlefield to Anders, renewing his attack with a vicious blow to the knee.

The rogue was gripping her arm where the blood was pouring from, “Little help here, Anders?!” She shouted, tearing a strip off of her top to wrap around the cut for now so she could use both her arms for her daggers. Before the ogre had time to react, she was pouncing in again, daggers like sharp teeth in its side. 

“Anders, what are you doing? They need healing!” Hawke called, eyes focused on the ogre. It seemed to be weakening, but so were the two melee fighters around it. Fenris was wheezing with every painful intake of breath and arc with his sword and Isabela only had a full range of movement with one of her arms. Usually, it was so obvious that they were going to win. This time? It was going to be close. 

After there was no response for a while, Hawke glanced over to check on Anders. He gasped. The other mage was on the floor, face-first onto the floor, arms and legs sprawled around him. “Anders!” Garrett yelled, voice breaking as he rushed over to him, “Anders is down!” The mage started checking him over for injuries. 

Isabela looked over at that pained shout, but at the wrong moment. The ogre slammed its hand down onto her, knocking her to the ground. Her head snapped against the floor with a crack and her vision faded to black upon impact. Fenris snarled, watching the rogue get tossed away, and stepped forward with more aggression, blade swinging harder.

“Oh Maker, Anders, what  _ happened?”  _ Garrett was saying, turning the body over in his grip. His brown eyes scanned the other mage worriedly. There didn’t seem to be any wounds or blood, and apart from the fact he was unconscious on the floor, he looked  _ fine.  _ Hawke watched his chest in confusion, watching the regular rise and fall of his chest. He was breathing fine. It… It almost looked like he was sleeping, of all things. Hawke knew  _ that  _ was impossible. 

Garrett didn’t expect what happened next. 

Fenris was a capable warrior. Always had been. But when he was injured, fighting one on one with an ogre with most of its strength left, he never really stood a chance. The elf was tossed aside and crumpled against one of the cave walls not long after Isabela had fallen. Before Hawke knew it, there was a large hand around his waist, lifting him up. 

He jumped in surprise, his staff falling from his grip as he was lifted higher. The last thing he saw was Anders’ completely calm face, before teeth tore into his side, biting a huge chunk of his torso off before spitting him back onto the ground. And then he saw nothing. 

Garrett hadn’t expected it. He hadn’t expected to  _ lose.  _

His last thought was that he prayed to the Maker that Anders didn’t wake up. Maker knows what he’d find if he did.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed! Leave a comment/kudos if you did! XD


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